Here Comes Jesus ...

Monday, March 30, 2015

Mark
11:11 states: “Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around
at everything.”

We
find another often overlooked detail in the clamor of Palm Sunday in the last
verse At the end of this incredible day.
He is at the Temple and the commotion is everywhere and he sees the money
changes and the lack of people paying attention to what is right in the eyes of
God. The people are out of perspective of God’s provision, direction, and
ultimately relationship.

Perspective is defined as: “a
particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view:”

Jesus
does not set up a command center in Jerusalem that night … He leaves the city
and goes to the suburb of Bethany…we assume to spend the night with His beloved
friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Jesus
was not the kind of Messiah the people of Jerusalem expected, and yet they were
right to greet Him as a king. Jesus, God’s son, enters he bring the perspective of mercy. He won’t release
the people from Roman occupation or take revenge upon their enemies, but He
will offer them redemption!

A
young couple rented a vacation cottage for a week. One afternoon the husband
looked out a window at the swimming pool and exclaimed, "Let's change our
clothes and go get some exercise!" His wife, who was washing the dishes in
the kitchen and looking out the window watching some people play tennis,
quickly agreed. While she dressed for a tennis match, he put on his swimming
trunks. The window a person chooses to look out at the world often determines
that individual's perception of reality.

Jesus
said in Matthew 6:33-34; "But seek first His kingdom and His
righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow
will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

When
Jesus enters our perspective is changed to seek His Kingdom and His
Righteousness.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Matthew
21:14 “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.”

Preacher/author
Tony Campolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked
to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man’s healing.
That next week he got a telephone call from the man’s wife. She said, "You
prayed for my husband. He had cancer."

Campolo
thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that his cancer had been
eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, "He
died." Compolo felt terrible. But she continued, "Don’t feel bad.
When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he
was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God.”

She
said, “He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren
grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness
and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards
God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing
to be in his presence.”

But
the lady told Compolo, "After you prayed for him, Jesus came and gave him
peace.Peace had come over him and a joy
had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our
lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve
been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and
praying for healing."

And
then she said something incredibly profound. She said, "He wasn’t cured,
but he was healed."

While
Jesus may not heal certain physical infirmities that we have, He does want to
bring healing to our spirits. I’m not saying that Jesus can’t bring physical
healing, it’s just that we don’t see that happening all the time. And
hopefully, all of us know that our ultimate healing will come in heaven.

Romans
5:6 states: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless,
Christ died for the ungodly.” You and I are ungodly without Jesus and His
healing.

Monday, March 23, 2015

When
Jesus enters He calls for prayer … Here
Comes Jesus!… turning over the tables.

Matthew
21:13 "It is written," he said to them, "’My house will be
called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ’den of robbers’."

Our
house should be a “house of prayer” but often it’s a house of confusion and
conformity. Confusion, because we allow the rush of the day to invade us to the
point where God is shoved out and we have no time to talk to God.

Conformity,
because we are conformed to the surroundings around us instead of drawing aside
to have some quiet time with God. But God wants us to be a people of prayer. Not
simple, surface prayers, but prayers that penetrate our own hearts and the
heart of God.

The
early African converts to Christianity were faithful to pray. Each one
reportedly had separate spots in the thicket where they poured out their hearts
to God. The several paths to these spots became distinctly marked; and when any
one began to decline in prayer time, it was soon apparent to others. They would
then kindly remind him, saying, “Brother, the grass grows on your path.”

What
about you? Does the grass grow on your path to God? For the Christian, prayer
should be one of the most natural things we do every day, every hour of the
day.

Phil.
4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of
God, which all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.”

Karen
is the best minister’s wife…she is a prayer warrior. We pray as a family in the
morning and before we go to bed. Now Karen hears the fire whistle and she is
praying. I hear it a night and think, “Oh great, this is going to wake up the
children.” Then I hear Karen praying for the firefighters and those in need of
help. We are driving down the road and she sees a car on the side or an
accident and she starts to pray…She is lifting in intercession and she is
guarding the heart with prayer.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Matthew 14:26, “When the disciples
saw him waling on the Lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost!” They said, and
cried out in fear.” Just as they crumble…
Here Comes Jesus!… walking on the water

Emotional
storms within us can be as hard to handle as external physical ones. Grief,
fear, and worry can cause us to be in great turmoil. To see us through the
rough times of life, God provides His protection and peace. But protection does
not mean that troubles won’t occur. Jesus allowed the disciples to experience
the fear and anxiety of being in a boat on a turbulent sea. He permitted them
to suffer because He has something far more important in mend He wanted to
teach them to recognize their own helplessness, His sufficiency, and their need
of Him. The same principle applies to us as well.

The
peace that God provides is not dependent upon the quieting of our circumstances
or the removal of external pressures. Nor does it mean the absence of conflict.
The promised peace comes in three ways.

-First, Jesus Himself becomes our peace. Through His death,
burial and resurrection, Jesus has reconciled (that is to make us friends
again) with God. We are no longer enemies with God. In God we can rest.

-Second, When in right relationship with the Father, we have
the ability to live at peace with others. Through God, we have the power to
choose to forgive, to keep no record of wrongs, and to show love to people who
oppose us.

-Third, the transforming work of the Holy Spirit enables us
to experience an increasing sense of inner tranquility.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Patrick
lived in the fifth century, a time of rapid change and transition. In many ways
we might say that those times of turbulence and uncertainty were not unlike our
own. The Roman Empire was beginning to break up, and Europe was about to enter
the so-called Dark Ages. Rome fell to barbarian invaders in 410. Within ten
years of that time, the Roman forces began to leave Britain to return to Rome
to defend positions back home. Life, once so orderly and predictable under
Roman domination, now became chaotic and uncertain. Patrick entered the world
of that time.

Patrick
was born Patricius somewhere in Roman Britain to a relatively wealthy family.
He was not religious as a youth and, in fact, claims to have practically
renounced the faith of his family. While in his teens, Patrick was kidnapped in
a raid and transported to Ireland, where he was enslaved to a local warlord and
worked as a shepherd until he escaped six years later. He returned home and
eventually undertook studies for the priesthood with the intention of returning
to Ireland as a missionary to his former captors. It is not clear when he
actually made it back to Ireland, or for how long he ministered there, but it
was definitely for a number of years. By the time he wrote the Confession and
the "Letter to Coroticus," Patrick was recognized by both Irish
natives and the Church hierarchy as the bishop of Ireland. By this time, also,
he had clearly made a permanent commitment to Ireland and intended to die
there. Scholars have no reason to doubt that he did. He died on March 17 the
day we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick…took the circumstances of the day
and turns them to his and God’s benefit. For example, Many see a four-leaf
clover as Irish and for St. Patrick’s day. That is not true… St. Patrick used what
were all over the hillside of Ireland…three leafed shamrocks to teach about the
three aspects of God…father God the Creator, …the Son Jesus, the Redeemer, …
the Holy Spirit living within believers, the comforter.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Our culture invites us into constant activity and
exhaustion. In our world of unending hurry, we are trained to fear
silence and even to avoid rest itself as a sign of insignificance (if we’re not
working or doing something productive, who are we, anyway?). Thank God that this is not what Jesus invites us into.
Any one who reads Matthew 6 or John 15 will have a hard time missing Jesus’
vision of a slow life of trust and surrender. And the Bible makes is
clear that Sabbath, as a discipline we engage for the sake of our souls, is
essential for establishing a healthy, whole rhythm for life. In Sabbath,
we acknowledge our limitations. And we acknowledge that we need a rest
far greater than what 24-hour break can provide.

Taken into consideration, the Sabbath rest is an act of
intention. God commanded us in Exodus 20: 8-10: Six days you shall labor and
do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it
you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your
manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gate”.
Believers should consider the Sabbath as a day of retreat; one in which we
honor our Creator, cease from work and remove ourselves for a while from the
stress, mental challenges and physical fatigue that labor often brings. We draw
away, whether we enjoy our occupation not. Your Sabbath does not necessarily
have to be Sunday, but could be any day of the week set aside to come apart
from work in order to rest. In doing so, we not only gain physical respite but also
experience the blessing of having spent time in the presence and worship of our
God. This is why it is so critically important that we worship as a body of
believers to encourage and uplift each other to our Creator for restoration and
hope.

This
discipline restores and replenishes the soul. Rest is important. It has been
scientifically proven that lack of rest affects our immune system, our ability
to handle stress, our thought processes, and even our ability to work. This
discipline of a Sabbath rest not only rejuvenates us spiritually, but
physically and emotionally as well. A healthy follower of Jesus Christ is one
who takes time to rest.

Monday, March 9, 2015

One
might ask, “Why do we need to practice prayer as a discipline?” We have
severely impaired attention spans because of our fallen, sinful nature. In
prayer we attend our minds to God, and all too often that attention lasts for a
few seconds. We begin our prayer with "Heavenly Father," and it is
not long before our minds are meandering off; attending to anything other than
the One we began to address. It is for this reason that we must undertake
prayer as a spiritual discipline — to enable ourselves to attain the
single-mindedness necessary to attend to the God-who-is-present. It is also
vital for us to understand that prayer, just as every other discipline, is a
learning process. We will find ourselves distracted. We will notice our minds
wandering among the countless concerns of the day. However, as we continue in
the paths of prayer, our meanders will be shorter and less frequent.

Prayer
is conversation or communication with God. It involves both speaking and
listening. So often we pray as if it were a monologue. But prayer is so much
more than talking to God. In fact, the seasoned prayer warrior knows that
prayer is more about listening than talking. Soren Kierkegaard said, "A
man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more
and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening." And
this makes sense because God knows much more than we do — and He knows it a
whole lot better than we do.

Prayer is opening our lives
to God for change. Prayer is recognition that God is God and we are not, and so
in prayer we yield our desires to God's. Jesus prayed, "Not my will but
yours." In prayer we ask God to change the way we see other people, life,
and our circumstances. When you look at other people and your situation, see
the eyes of Christ. It is then that transformation happens.

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Welcome

Thank You for taking a look at my blog page. Feel welcome and ask questions.

I am married to Karen, we have five children.Matthew, Alice, Nicholas, Kendyll, & Nathan.

Matthew and Alice are our biological children and Nicholas (passed away from Heart Surgery complications at 2 months old), Kendyll, and Nathan were adopted. I do not believe biology makes a parent...it helps you get there, but parenting takes work and dedication covered in Prayer!

I am love My God, my Wife and Children, and Spiritual Formation. Acts 2:42 states that Christians are "devoted." I may never be famous, but I will be famous in my home and in my world as one that is devoted to God, Family, and Growing in Jesus.